


before i disappear

by emmalauren



Series: drabbles/fluff/prompts [4]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-14 02:07:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17499563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmalauren/pseuds/emmalauren
Summary: Leta and Newt have known each other for a long time. This is the story of how they fell in love, broke apart, and found each other again, this time just slightly altered.





	before i disappear

**Author's Note:**

> wow okay this is the longest one shot i have ever written but i love them so much and expect more of me writing about them especially once fbatcog is released on itunes

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had been described by very few people as a place that they were eager to leave - most of them counted among the wizarding world’s most feared villains not long after they had left the famous academy walls. When Leta Lestrange entered her final month at the school and uttered the very same words, whispered to the ghosts in the hallways that her bags were already packed and she was ready to flee, nobody, not even the girl herself, knew in which direction her next steps would take her. She spent most of her times outside of her classes tucked away in a closet under a set of stairs, a place where she could work in peace, aside from the chittering of a Kneazle or the occasional chirp from a stray Puffskein that had managed to escape the enclosure Newt had built and Leta had charmed. She did her Transfiguration homework in the corner and watched Newt (when he wasn’t busy chasing down new animals, like Mooncalves, that couldn’t quite fit into their small world) tend to his small but ever-expanding menagerie. They didn’t talk often - they both couldn’t quite speak of the future for reasons too personal to air - but they would sit next to each other every night and stare up at the stars out of the small circular window. On nights when it was too cloudy, Leta would pull out her wand and cast charms faster than Newt could name which one they were, summoning wind that pulled her hair out of it’s loose ribbon and pulled Newt’s curls into his eyes, creating twittering yellow birds that soared through the space with a careful flick of her wrist and then with a final burst of energy, making liquid stardust rain down over them, staining her robes and turning Newt’s hair to gold. It was moments like this that made them forget exactly why they hadn’t made good on their mutual feelings. It was the moments right after that made them remember. The great clock that cogs turned between the thick walls of the school they call both their sanctuary and their hell would chime curfew and the two scrambled back to their common rooms and into their beds, and tried all-too-hard to forget the exact color of the other’s eyes. It was their ritual for over two years, the same tired routine that neither of them quite had the courage or the energy to break. 

Time was a cruel mistress and it fastened its hands around them both quickly. Their final weeks at Hogwarts flew by, with Newt finding new homes for some of his animals and enchanting a suitcase to fit the rest into, building the perfect little homes for each of the creatures he had in his care already, with the help of Leta’s careful charm-casting. If she noticed the picture of her on his desk - this one was taken back when she was in Year Five, which felt like another lifetime now - she didn’t say anything. It should have made her dig her heels in that much harder, but she was seventeen now, her father had no hold on her anymore, and in less than a week, she was going to be an untethered soul. It was the kind of romantic notion she had always toyed with, being completely unmoored and letting oneself float around the universe and bathe in starlight. It was the kind of thing Newt had let her feel before - like she was a balloon tied around his wrist, and he let her fly. Clouds may have filled her head her last night at Hogwarts but every single good thing Earth had to offer glimmered in Newt’s eyes. She didn’t have to look beneath her feet to know where she was. All she had to do was look at him.

It was after Leta had turned in her last piece of Transfiguration homework to Professor McGonagall (receiving the warmest smile she had ever seen from a teacher in return) and escaped the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom for the last time that she finally could feel the air flood back into her lungs. Despite the same old Gryffindor taunts calling in the same girly voices, she held her head high and could almost smile. She grabbed her bags from the closet underneath the stairs, said goodbye to the only place she had ever felt truly happy and stepped outside to the Scottish Highland sunlight only to stop short. On the bridge between Hogwarts and what could be, stood Newt Scamander, a shy smile on his face and suitcase in hand.  
“Newt? What are you doing here?” Leta whispered, too aware of the fact that it was the first time they had ever seen each other in clothing other than the Hogwarts robes that labeled Leta as everything she had always resented. “Shouldn’t you be on the train already? I thought your mother was picking you up at King’s Cross.”  
“Yes. Well, you see, they wouldn’t let my case on the train with all the creatures, which is honestly is just a window of how blinking insane most of the people at this school are, and then I thought, well, the train just passes by our farm anyway, so why not just Apparate there anyway, and then I thought, well, Leta has nowhere to go, so why don’t you spend the summer with me?” He spoke so quickly anyone who had known him even a degree less would have lost every other word. But Leta would have known what he was trying to say if she was deaf and blind.  
“You mean it, Newt?” She asked. She knew exactly who she was, what she had done to him, and what he had done for her. She didn’t deserve his kindness, and yet here he was, giving it to her.  
“Of course, Leta. I would never lie to you.” 

The Scamander hippogriff farm was not grand by most standards - they had a farmhouse, that while large, was dwarfed by the barn next to it, and fields that stretched for miles instead of well-manicured gardens. It was the exact opposite of the world the name Lestrange held the key to, and Leta couldn’t have been more thrilled. It was the people who stood on the front porch of the farmhouse that she was more wary to meet. Theseus she had seen in the hallways of Hogwarts when she had first arrived, normally trying desperately to comb down his younger brother’s wily hair or speaking in low tones to a small first-year. He was kind, and while he had graduated from Hogwarts seven years ago now, he was already the Head of the Auror Department at the Ministry of Magic, the youngest to ever do so. He had changed from the tall Prefect her memory had painted a picture of, and it was almost shocking to see it. Their mother stood beside him, tall and tough, with weathered skin and the Scamander hair that both brothers shared tied back tightly behind her head. Newt flashed a smile at Leta and bounded forward, greeting his mother with a smile and a string of fast words that even Leta couldn’t quite catch, his eyes not quite meeting hers when he talked. It was a habit of Newt’s that Leta had noticed before they had become friends and the fact that he met only the eyes of her and the creatures he loved meant more than she would ever admit. Theseus shook Newt’s hand firmly and then raised his voice to include Leta. “Newt, I see you brought a guest home with you. Would you care to re-introduce us?”  
“Leta, this is my brother, Theseus. I suspect you remember him from our first year at Hogwarts? It’s hard to forget an ugly mug like his.” Theseus mocked offense and swiped at his younger brother lazily before holding his hand out to Leta.  
“Nice to meet you again, Ms. Lestrange.” Leta tried to push her reaction down and force a smile.  
“Please. Call me Leta.” 

Leta had been the best in every class she’d ever taken in Hogwarts - she wasn’t dumb, and she knew her days flying were numbered. Racing Theseus and Newt on the back of hippogriff to the orchard on the other side of the Scamander farm was one of the best memories she would ever have in her lifetime, even if it couldn’t quite erase the yelling at night when she was safely tucked into the warm guest bedroom in the farmhouse. Newt’s mother was not pleased of Newt’s plan to leave for the Romanian mountains to go study dragons on his first step to become a qualified Magizoologist. While Theseus never yelled, he did plead with Newt almost daily to come and join him at the Ministry of Magic. It didn’t sound like a half-bad plan to Leta, but she had spent too much time with Newt to pretend that he could ever be happy behind a desk and using magic while his colleagues down the hall caged and sold the very creatures he had spent most of his life protecting. It wasn’t a plan he could follow, and not one she ever pictured for herself either. It was the second hardest thing she would ever have to do when she flew with Newt late one night to the apple orchard, climbed the tallest tree and sat, staring up at the stars. “Newt,” Leta had barely spoken to him those days in the cupboard, and when he turned those Earth-shaking eyes in her direction, she couldn’t speak anymore.  
“Leta, I think you should come to Romania with me.”  
“Newt, I’m going to London with Theseus.” Leta blurted at the same time as Newt, her eyes widening as she realized what he’d said and shaking her head. “No, no, no. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. I can’t hurt you. I can’t.”  
“What?” Newt asked, his eyes wide.  
“Theseus has a friend in the Ministry who needs a good spellcaster. He recommended me, and I’ve been offered the position. I accepted. It’s not quite an Auror position, but I work for a couple more years and maybe I’ll get there. Theseus says I’ve got potential, and my father won’t come within a fifty-mile radius of the Ministry.”  
“Oh. I see.” Newt went quiet, his eyes sliding from her face to somewhere just beyond her. Leta’s heart sank.  
“I’m so sorry, Newt.” She whispered.  
“Me too.” He couldn’t quite muster a smile, only watch as she leaned forward, kissed him on the cheek, and vanished. 

Newt despised Christmas. Despite his extensive magical abilities, he was never quite comfortable in the cold, which meant that he was stuck inside watching the hippogriffs roll in the snow while his breath fogged up the window in front of him. Theseus normally regaled their family with tales of his adventures as an Auror, occasionally dropping a hint that he had recently seen Leta in the hallway before hurrying on to mention another classmate of Newt’s, as if Newt could forget who Leta was to him, or the summer the three had shared, the only time Newt had truly felt like Theseus’ equal, if only through the eyes of the girl he loved. In recent years, he would arrive days before Theseus did, mutter his way through conversations with his mother that thinly veiled her disdain of his latest adventure. The Christmas after New York was different. He was bolder, stronger, the slight sparkle starting to shine for the first time since Leta had said goodbye to him the summer after they had graduated. While the elder Scamanders couldn’t quite summon the same enthusiasm, for the world had, indeed, suffered great casualties, and no one could ignore exactly what Newt had done both below the surface of the greatest city in the world and above with the help of the very creatures the wizarding world had learned to hate, both of their sons were now no doubt going down in the wizarding history books. Not half bad for the sons of hippogriff breeders. It wasn’t until a week later that a bright flash of light in their fireplace announced Theseus’ arrival. While Newt normally spent most of his time at the Scamander farm in his case tending to the animals, he made an exception for his only sibling, even fastening his bowtie with the help of Picket. He greeted his brother with a genuine smile, face half-hidden in shadow. Theseus smiled - a tentative grin, one that Newt could have read if he remembered everything Leta had said the first months he had known her, before the incident, before everything had changed - and opened his mouth. “I have a surprise. Well, I have some news, and there’s someone I need to help share the news with you.” Newt hated surprises, which Theseus was well aware of, but even Newt could tell that Theseus was practically exploding with nervous energy. There was another flash of bright light and a feminine silhouette stepped out of the fireplace. “Hello, Newt.”

Newt could barely breathe, taking in all of Leta in front of him as she stood, not quite sure what to do with himself, or with the news glaringly clear to everyone present. Theseus stood too close to the girl he had loved, an engagement ring glittering on her finger distractingly. The woman in front of him was not the girl who had rained liquid stardust down over the two of them, nor was she the girl who had sat beneath the Bowtruckle tree and let the creatures climb over her as she read. This was the girl she had run away from. The Leta Lestrange who stood in front of him was barely Leta anymore, she was almost all Lestrange. Her hair was too precisely pushed away from her face and the clothes she wore were the emerald green of Slytherin. Everything Leta and Newt had escaped from was staring him right in the face, and it was wearing her face. It was almost too much, his throat expanding and closing painfully beneath his polka-dotted bowtie. “We’re engaged.” Leta blurted.  
“Congratulations, Leta.” Newt tried, the words coming out broken and pitiful. Before he knew it, he was standing behind a table with the rest of his family, and staring down the lens of a wizarding camera. It was all he could do to stand there for just long enough before he bolted, grabbing his coat from the door and stepping out into the snow, not even bothering with his wand as it sat on the kitchen table.  
“Newt!” He knew who it was before he even turned. There was a glimmer of the Leta he had known in the woman standing in the snow, her emerald dress dragging behind her. “I’m sorry. I would have told you, but I didn’t know how. I tried to write you letters, but I didn’t think it was right to give them to Theseus, and you move around so much that I didn’t know where to address them to. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I heard about New York, and then I thought you were dead, and I didn’t know what to think and I - I’m sorry Newt. I really am.” She was rambling, a habit of his she had clearly picked up and never lost. It was out of place on a woman as dignified as she, but Newt just looked down at the ground and nodded stiffly.  
“I know.”

It wasn’t until months later when Newt and Leta had finally come face-to-face again that Newt or Theseus saw a glimpse of the old Leta again. The search for Grindelwald was exhaustive, and Theseus and Newt weren’t talking, but Paris was pretty and Queenie Goldstein was just a tad too inquisitive.  
“So, you’re Leta, right? Newt keeps a picture of you in his suitcase.” Newt flushed brightly, Queenie’s eyes turning to him. “Oh. Not anymore. You’re engaged to his brother now. That’s interesting.” Queenie, despite her extensive skill set, was a terrible liar, and Leta was practically a portable polygraph.  
“And you’re a Leglimens. I’ve felt you trying to read my mind for the past half-an-hour.”  
“Oh. Well, I’ve just been trying to figure you out. Newt doesn’t talk about you much, and I have been awfully curious since I first saw your picture. I know what happened at Hogwarts, and I was wondering what you’d been doing since then.” Queenie was too cheery, and Newt, even after years without Leta by his side, could read her like an open book.  
“I know exactly what you think of me, Queenie Goldstein. You think I’m a taker, and Newt deserved better than me. You’re right. He did deserve better. But you don’t get to judge when you don’t know the whole story. I made a mistake, and you want to know the story, then fine. Read it.” Theseus stepped forward, slender fingers curling around Leta’s wrist, and whispering urgently in her ear. “No, Theseus. Let her see me for what I am.” Newt could see Leta shaking and all he could do was stare as Queenie closed her eyes for a moment, nothing more, then as Queenie’s eyes flew open, filling with tears. “You wanted to know the story, Queenie, then fine. I was careless and hurt, and I was in love, and my teachers hated me as my classmates did, and Dumbledore cared too much about himself to bother teaching me the lesson that he should have learned. I needed saving, and Newt has always been there for me. So he took the fall, and Dumbledore waived the punishment for him. We both stayed at Hogwarts, and I scrubbed the Great Hall with a Hippogriff feather for my entire sixth year. I couldn’t quite save myself from my father’s punishments. That’s why I left. That’s why I’m a taker, and that’s why I loved them both, Queenie. I don’t care what you think of me, but that’s the truth.” Newt watched as Leta stalked away towards the distant Lestrange tomb, Theseus cursing softly underneath his breath as he followed. Newt was observant, more than most, but none of them could have missed the scars that lashed her back, ugly and stark beneath the silk of her dress. 

It was over a year after Leta’s death that Theseus and Newt finally returned to the Scamander farm, both a little bit broken and filled with soul-aching exhaustion that would never truly leave. They owed it to themselves to lay and sleep, and heal, but Newt only had to take two steps in the direction of the hippogriff barn for Theseus to follow. The gray stallion that Leta had favored stayed in its stall, but the Scamander brothers both mounted their own winged beasts and took to the sky, reaching the orchard just short of Leta’s record from that summer all those years ago. “She loved you, you know that,” Theseus whispered, pulling a golden apple from the tree they sat beneath.  
“And she loved you,” Newt answered simply, before raising his eyes to meet his brother’s and raising his wand to cast the one spell that would never leave his memory. “Venusce,” Newt whispered and watched as liquid stardust rained down on the boys from the universe beyond the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know help i love them (also not entirely canon but neither was most of the movie, soooooo)
> 
> as always, find me on tumblr @emma-laurennn with all your thoughts, comments, and ideas!!


End file.
